Guilty as Sin

1. Cora

Cora

I focus on balancing the three drinks in my hands as I wind my way back to our table.

It’s crowded for a Wednesday night, the usually laid-back lounge teeming with White Sox fans after the late summer game.

But I’m good at being unnoticeable in most spaces, which is to my advantage as I slip easily between drunk people.

I reach our high top and distribute our drinks. A tequila sunrise for Lucy, a gin and tonic (hold the tonic) for Jennifer, and a whiskey ginger ale for me. We clink glasses.

“To getting our table back!” Jennifer yells toward the people in our regular booth, but luckily, they don’t hear her. Lucy and I exchange a look, and I regret ordering Jennifer’s drink at its regular strength. I reach out to squeeze her hand.

“Jen, you are one of the smartest women I know.”

“You’re just saying that,” she grumbles.

“Do you really think I would’ve opened a clinic with you otherwise?” When she doesn’t answer, I state the obvious to her. “Dave’s the one being an idiot.”

Jennifer puts her head on the table, her magenta hair fanning over her shoulders. She and Dave have been dating for six years, and she’s getting impatient for him to propose.

“Marriage isn’t something to force,” I remind her.

I’ve said it so many times it might as well be my mantra.

It’s more than a platitude. Growing up watching my parents, whose marriage was arranged, I know it’s true.

But I can’t explain my parents’ misery to Jennifer.

My father’s cruelty, my mother’s withdrawal.

And their marriage itself, the cementing of an alliance between rival families.

An arrangement like that doesn’t make sense in present-day America.

Not unless you’re part of that world—the world I left behind.

Lucy nods in agreement with me, while Jennifer groans and pushes her drink away.

“Watch, you and Noah will get married before I do,” she grumbles. The idea is so ridiculous I laugh.

“We’ve been on two dates,” I say. We have a third scheduled in a few days, dinner at a restaurant he says will be a surprise, something I’m very much looking forward to.

“Ooh,” Lucy says, “I didn’t realize there was a second. Did he wear khakis to that one too?” she asks. I purse my lips at her, because yes, Noah wore khakis on both of our dates.

“I really regret telling you that.”

Lucy grins at me. She’s a brilliant doctor, a credit to our ophthalmology practice, even if she’s a bit nosy.

She’s still shadowing me and Jennifer, but she’ll be ready for her own patients soon.

Given her astuteness, she’s also a great reminder of why I don’t share the details of my life, even if it means never truly connecting with people.

But the details of what Noah wore yesterday isn’t a matter of life and death.

It’s the distant past I have to keep secret.

My childhood, my family, the identity I was born with.

Withholding those details from my friends undervalues our friendship, I know that, which only deepens my guilt.

I care about these women. I want to reciprocate their sharing of past traumas and funny stories, of sibling rivalries and disastrous family vacations.

But I can’t.

Even though she’s my business partner, Jennifer knows only the vaguest outline of my past. Namely, that I have one but don’t like to talk about it.

She must’ve informed Lucy about my reticence at some point, because now Lucy focuses her curiosity mainly on my present. Which includes my meager dating life.

“You guys should take a trip,” Lucy suggests.

“A weekend getaway. See if he packs only khakis.” She gives me a teasing grin, then surreptitiously slides Jennifer’s too-strong drink out of her reach.

It’ll be up to me and Lucy to finish it.

As twentysomethings with med school debt, we don’t waste alcohol.

“I know you’re joking, but a trip could actually be nice,” I say. “I haven’t taken a vacation in a while.”

“You haven’t taken a vacation ever,” Lucy corrects.

She sips from Jen’s drink and passes it to me.

“You deserve some time off,” she says. “Talk to Mr. Khaki about it, see what he thinks. I bet he’d be very interested in the two of you staying in a bed and breakfast. Or in a regular hotel. Or an RV.”

“And you?” I ask Lucy, an obvious pivot. “How are you and Rachel these days?”

“Still occasional,” Lucy says. “We enjoy each other’s company, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

“It should be the only thing that matters,” Jennifer mumbles from her folded arms, her head still on the table.

I have no useful response to that. Nothing other than Marriage isn’t something to force. So I say nothing and take a large swallow of Jennifer’s drink. Oof. Gin.

Lucy’s phone pings, and she seizes the opportunity to change the subject.

“Who’s Cormac Muloney?” she asks, her brows furrowed at her screen.

My stomach goes cold at my father’s name, so close to my original name, the life I fled from. The fact that I’m unnoticeable in crowds isn’t just convenient in bars.

It’s necessary for my survival.

“Dunno,” I say, but my voice doesn’t sound normal. “Why do you ask?”

“My friend Maeve got a byline today.” Lucy reads it out loud. “Cormac Muloney’s Son Released from Cook County Jail without Charge.”

I feel my jaw fall open and have to force myself to close it. Connor’s here? My little brother’s in Chicago and he didn’t tell me? My one family member I’m still in contact with, and he couldn’t be bothered to text me that he’s in town.

He’s too busy getting arrested, apparently.

I reach for my purse. I need to text my brother immediately. But when Lucy starts reading snippets from the article, I freeze, too stunned to move.

“Connor Muloney, only son of Cormac Muloney, head of the Boston Muloney crime family—” Lucy looks up at me. “You’re from around there, aren’t you? Did you ever hear of the Muloneys?”

“Providence,” I croak, my mouth suddenly dry. “Not Boston.” Because for the past ten years, I’ve been Samantha Greene from Providence.

Not Cora Muloney from Boston’s greatest crime family.

Chills spread down my neck at the thought of my former name. I despised being the daughter of Cormac Muloney. When I cast off his surname, I felt like I’d burst free from the prison of his mafia misogyny. My stomach twists, and I have to remind myself that I am not Cora Muloney anymore.

“It’s all East Coast.” Lucy shrugs. “They’re only like an hour apart, right?”

“Yeah,” I manage. It’s exactly why I chose Providence as my fake hometown.

It’s close enough to Boston that I can make small talk about it, even if most of my trips there began and ended at the Providence Place Mall.

Trips taken in my sister Charlotte’s Escalade, both of us singing Taylor Swift at the top of our lungs while Connor yelled at us from the backseat, his hands clamped over his ears.

He claimed to hate everything about the mall, especially the drive.

But he asked to come with us every time.

I once teased him in front of his friends about how much he loved going to the bougie furniture store and flopping on all the couches.

With his cheeks bright red, he insisted I was lying.

The incident led to his nickname for me.

The nickname which only he dared to call me.

“He is hot,” Lucy says, zooming in on Connor’s picture.

This, above everything, disorients me the most. Connor can’t be hot.

He’s only thirteen! Or at least, that’s how I’ve always pictured him.

Even though we text through his burners on a regular basis, to me he’s still thirteen years old and wearing that gross gray beanie, the beanie I snatched off his head and swatted him with before hugging him goodbye.

That was ten years ago.

Now, Connor’s all grown up, and he grew up without me around.

He became a man with only Charlotte and our mom as the women in his life: obedient women always subservient to our father.

My chest hurts, but I know it was for the best. Connor, a headstrong boy, he was meant for our family’s mafia life. But I, a headstrong girl, was not.

Jennifer leans closer to Lucy, to peer at Connor’s picture. I don’t want to see it. I shake my head clear and finally pull out my phone to text my brother.

There’s a text from an unrecognized local number, a South Side area code.

Unknown: Hello, Coralying. Your brother made a mistake. You can help him fix it, or you can let him die. Your choice.

All the blood drains from my face. The world around me blurs, and my awareness shrinks into panic. Then dread.

Coralying. Only Connor ever called me that. I blink rapidly, trying to rationalize away my fear. The unknown number could be a new burner of Connor’s, and he’s just playing a prank. Or it could be someone we knew from Boston, even though he rarely called me that nickname in front of other people.

Then the picture comes through.

Beneath the ominous text, an image of my brother’s face appears. He’s so beaten and bloody he’s almost unrecognizable, his features grotesque with swelling and bruises. I feel suddenly sick. I bite my lips together to stop myself from throwing up or gasping out loud.

My little brother’s in serious trouble.

And he needs my help.